80,000 families benefit from DILG loan program

Over 80,000 poor families who are beneficiaries of the Department of Interior and Local Government ’s community-based savings and microfinance program have availed of loans to start their own livelihood projects.

DILG Secretary Ronaldo Puno said the DILG’s Bayanihan Savings Replication Project (BSRP) has so far targeted 622 out of 1,617 local government units (LGUs) that have, in turn, replicated the program in their respective communities. BSRP organizes communities into financial centers providing the poor with easy access to credit facilities.

Puno said the BSRP, which advocates the Filipino value of Bayanihan, is implementing a uniform and compatible savings and demand-driven microfinance strategy to help low-income families finance small-scale businesses such as sari-sari stores and agriculture based enterprises.

"We hope to further expand the scope of this program to help poor families in the countryside become economically self-reliant," Puno said.

"Hence, we are urging LGUs to adopt the BSRP in their respective communities as a way to economically empower their localities and their constituencies."

According to BLGD Director Manuel Gotis, the BSRP organizes communities into Financial Centers or Bayanihan Centers (BCs) designed to help strengthen the capacities of LGUs to be effective entrepreneurs and development managers.

"The program aims to accomplish this by reinforcing linkages with the private sector and increasing the access of LGUs to micro-finance institutions and official development assistance," Gotis said.

As of January 2006, 4,856 bayanihan centers have already been organized under the program, with a total of 113,293 members and total savings of P69.3 million, BLGD data show.

From these organized bayanihan centers, 70 percent or 3,385 are engaged in various entrepreneurial activities such as sari-sari stores, retailing and wholesaling of agricultural products, hog raising, and cattle trading (buy-and-sell), Gotis said.

"By end- 2005, 80,230 members have benefited through the lending activities of matured bayanihan centers, some of whom have engaged their loans in livelihood activities," Gotis added.

Besides helping low-income families, BSRP also assists LGUs maintain peace and order by forging unity, trust and harmony within communities; promoting self-reliance and entrepreneurship; enhancing partnerships between local governments and NGOs; increasing family incomes through higher savings and capital build-up; and widening the access of LGUs to government programs.– Cecille Suerte Felipe